


i'll shine for you, that's what i'll do

by rainynickel (HippoCritical)



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Angst, Introspection, M/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-24
Updated: 2013-12-24
Packaged: 2018-01-05 23:40:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,129
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1099915
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HippoCritical/pseuds/rainynickel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Wherein Cecil is missing, and Carlos introspects.</p>
            </blockquote>





	i'll shine for you, that's what i'll do

**Author's Note:**

> Kind of weird, purely self-indulgent and unbeta-ed. Title taken from 'Rocky took a lover' by Bell X1.

They came for him today. Three of them, grey-uniformed and faceless, robotic voices barking out clipped sentences.

It had only been inevitable. the past week had seen more than one citizen being dragged off for “questioning”, only to come back not quite like before.

(Or in some cases, not come back at all.)

The thing with Cecil is, that his entire being is a delicate balance, a drop of mercury suspended in an airtight tube, where the slightest of disruptions can be volatile.

They don’t understand him, none of them do, and they won’t ever be able to because nobody tried as hard as Carlos does to unravel the mystery that is Cecil and even he’s not sure he gets it right half the time.

None of them can see _him_ , beneath the blood and bone and the carefully architectured mask he wears, a twisted, messed-up mass of confusion and hurt and anger. How the person who is so effective as the comforting, faceless voice on the radio is the same one who stutters while saying ‘Hello’ to people down the street.

Night Vale, Carlos thinks, was made to accommodate those in need.

It was built to love those, who aren’t very easy to love; be it wandering glow clouds, crazy psychics or fragile, disillusioned radio announcers who can bind the whole town together, even while they’re unravelling at the seams.

And love, it does.

Carlos knows this because he’s seen it in action countless times. Night Vale has provided comfort to the cynical, warmth to the lonely, and a home to the lost. It is an odd puzzle, where every piece belongs to a different box but fits to form a pretty picture nonetheless.

He’s got too much of the outside world, Carlos does, too much of reality in him to ever fully belong in this strange haven but it doesn’t stop him from marvelling at this town’s unending capacity to care.

Because Carlos knows what its liked to be loved, to be adored beyond belief. He is objectively aware of his own beauty, the classical lines and smooth angles that make him such an appealing commodity.

He’s not vain. It’s hard to be, when you’ve seen the harsh, violent emotions that beauty can evoke in people. The mad, almost primal depths it can lead them to. He’s been used to being the trophy, the ultimate prize ever since he was sixteen, and it very nearly ruined him.  

Not anymore, though.

Now, Carlos hides behind his smudgy glasses and his facts and figures, because there is nothing more crushing than being put up on a pedestal, looked at with sheer reverence, only to have that become anger and disappointment, when the reality doesn't match up to whatever Carlos they imagine him to be.

He’s realized now that people are at their most selfish when it comes to loving someone.

Except Cecil, of course.

Most things, Carlos thinks, should come with a warning that exempts Cecil from the mundane rules and regulations the rest of the world follows.

Cecil loves him wholly and all-consumingly, bright and sure as the sun, as constant and unending like the universe. As thoughtless as the flow of a river. Like Carlos could just smile and it’d make his whole fucking day and god, sometimes the ease and purity of it hurts him in a place where Carlos didn’t think he could hurt anymore.

Cecil, who is wise beyond words and fragile and childlike and his irrational heart thinks nothing of giving itself to anybody, even life-long disappointments like Carlos and isn't that just the most surprising thing ever.

It changes a person, a love like that does. Very few people have been loved the way Carlos has been, loved just _because_.

It’s exhilarating, _empowering_ even, to have such pure, unfettered adoration showered on you and Carlos doesn’t realize just how much he wants it, needs it like he has damn near forgotten to until it’s ripped out from his hands.

The axis of the Earth tilted when Carlos first kissed Cecil. Something deep inside him quieted down as though sighing, finally, relief flooding even when his entire being was lit up by nerves, desire and the magic of Cecil’s mouth against his.

Cecil, who is a patchwork of bad memories and second chances, interwoven with that unique brand of naive, undying optimism. The scared five-year old’s belief that everything will be alright, it _has_ to.

In many ways, Carlos thinks, Cecil _is_ Night Vale.

Carlos doesn’t know, doesn't want to know, what or who made Cecil the way he is. He doesn’t ask questions like why there aren’t any mirrors in his apartment, or why every piece of clothing Cecil owns is bright to the point of being garish, what the story is behind each of the tattoos that cover his entire body like a security blanket because he’s not sure he’s prepared to know

What he does know is this:

The first time he realized he was in love with him was when Cecil had called him up, four weeks after they first kissed, brimming with excitement that he had researched all that “science-y stuff you always talk about” and would Carlos come over and explain the Bayesian Principle to him.

It hit him when, after three hours of actual, honest-to-God explaining of metascience, Cecil had walked him to the door and asked him if they could do something like this again, because “it was kind of fun, wasn’t it?”

Cecil bawls like a baby everytime he watches Wall-E, and it doesn't take a scientist like Carlos to see why.

Carlos would trade all the gold in the world to see the look of wide-eyed wonder and shocked happiness Cecil gets when they kiss, every day of his life.

Sometimes Carlos thinks Night Vale must be a dream, and he wakes up sweaty and shivering and terrified that everything he’s seen, all the happiness he’s felt isn’t real after all. (He only ever notices his happiness after nights like these.)

There are people you need. And there are people you want. Sometimes, the two overlap and a Venn diagram of varying degrees of one or the other is formed.

And then, maybe once in a while, someone like Cecil Gershwin Palmer walks into your life, the Venn diagram becomes a circle, and your life feels whole again.

But this is the time for action and not for pointless mental lists.

He may not give his heart away as frequently and freely as Cecil does, but when it happens, there is no Secret Police frightening enough to stop him.

And so, armed with resolve, the quiet surety that love grants you, and an FS-346 Nine-Elemental stun gun, Carlos stalks out into the night.


End file.
